Domain Name Com's Software EMC Retrospect 7.5 Professional for Windows Upgrade

Software EMC Retrospect 7.5 Professional for Windows Upgrade

Domain Name Com's - Software : EMC Retrospect 7.5 Professional for Windows Upgrade

- What a Wretched Piece of Software
It works really good until you really need it -- then, kabloom!

First, its oriented towards IT professionals. Secondly, although I had a critical problem within a year of purchasing it, they said I no longer qualified for support.

I backed up religiously every month for 9 months, and occasionally restored deleted files that I had also deleted from the recycle bin. But then I lost my boot drive, and it all went to pieces.

I followed directions and restored the OS and Retrospect. But when I went to restore the prior state from my external backup disk, Retrospect simply wouldn't recognize the backups. It kept insisting it need catalog files, so I followed the direction to recreate them, but Retrospect simply wouldn't recognize these files.

Now I can see the files perfectly in Windows Explorer, and I've checked the disk for errors, so the problem is all with Retrospect.

My advice is go with a simpler, more reliable backup solution, like Acronis TrueImage, which I had been using for three years prior to Retrospect, and managed to restore crashed disks twice without a hitch. I feel as dumb as I am sorry I ever switched.

Rating:

- Probably the best choice for home or small business
(This is my review of the full version of this software)

Backing up is not fun, but it is crucial. For a business, the reasons are obvious. For a home user, consider that more and more of your information is moving from paper to bits. Your snapshots, your music, your bank records, the list keeps growing.

What sets backup software apart from other applications (such as word processing) is that defects are extremely damaging. When Microsoft Word weirds out, you just slam your fist down and start writing your document again. If your backup software lets you down during a restore operation, it is a genuine catastrophe.

So stable backup software is essential. My strategy has been to seek out backup software that is marketed to both individual users, and enterprises, the larger the better!

Backup software marketed exclusively to enterprises is too expensive. Backup software marketed to individuals is unstable, just like (for example) Microsoft Money. If your backup software is used by large, powerful companies, then you can hope that these customers will be able to get bugs fixed quickly. YOU don't have the clout to get bugs fixed, but other customers do. You have to hope that the bug you find is making life unpleasant for a large, powerful corporate customer.

I have found two packages that fit this description: Ultrabac and Retrospect. Of the two, Retrospect has a much better feature set. Retrospect has had a feature called "Progressive backup" which is unusual (perhaps unique!) and extremely useful. Recently, Retrospect added a feature called "pruning" which is revolutionary. Nice going Retrospect!

The combination of these two features is simply outstanding. Each of my backup disks contains a "rolling" history of my data, going back over the last two monthes. I do a backup every night, and it requires no intervention on my part. Retrospect automatically deletes old backup data from my media ("pruning"), to prevent filling it up. Retrospect also avoids writing duplicate data to the backup media ("progressive backup"), thus extending the useful capacity of my backup disks.

The sophistication of this backup scheme motivates me to use multiple backup disks. The backup jobs on each backup disk are interdependent, so if there is ever a problem with one of them, all subsequent jobs on the backup disk are at risk. In my opinion, anyway.

So I alternate between two backup disks day by day. Each of these two backup disks contains a history of the state of my computer, going back 60 days, in increments of two days. So if I wish, I can restore the state of my computer to the way it was on any of the last 60 days. I can also retrieve individual files from those 60 days.

The latest version of Retrospect is rock-solid, the way backup software should be. It executes while I sleep, and it has not called attention to itself for as long as I can remember.

This is the backup system that I have dreamed about since I started buying my own computers.

I do have a few reservations about Retrospect. First, it is not that easy to learn how to use. No, it is not a nightmare, but it could have been simpler. As an experienced user, this does not bother me. Your mileage may vary. Second, I was not happy about the 7.0 version of this product. It lived its entire life with some non-trivial shortcomings. I won't go into details, because this is now ancient history. However, I don't think that this is reasonable for a backup program. Finally, it may be the case that EMC is losing interest in the product. There have been layoffs and rumors. You can find these yourself on Google ( The Register ). This is a bit speculative, but it is worth mentioning.

Do these sound like major complaints? That's right, they are not! Retrospect is as good as it gets for the home or small business.

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